The People's Bank of China, China's central bank, reported on Tuesday that China held 2.85 trillion U.S. dollars worth of foreign exchange reserves at the end of 2010, a year-on-year increase of 18.7 percent.

With 199 billion U.S. dollars of new foreign exchange reserves, the fourth quarter of 2010 witnessed the highest rise of the year. The quarterly increases were 47.9 billion U.S. dollars, 7.2 billion U.S. dollars and 194 billion U.S. dollars for the first, second and third quarters, respectively.

At the end of 2010, the Chinese currency was valued at 6.6227 yuan against the U.S. dollar, an appreciation of 3 percent.

New yuan-denominated bank loans were 7.95 trillion yuan in 2010, which exceeded the ceiling of 7.5 trillion yuan set by the central bank. Banks are expected to be more cautious on new credit grants in 2011 in the context of the country's tightening monetary policy.

The new yuan-denominated deposits are registered at 12 trillion yuan in 2010, which is 2 trillion yuan less than the total of new deposits in 2009.